


Tumblr ficlets

by JoCarthage



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternative Universe - Cowboy AU, M/M, Truck repair as metaphor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:02:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24712789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoCarthage/pseuds/JoCarthage
Summary: This is where I'll put my Tumblr prompt answers and ficlets that I like well enough to keep track of!
Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Comments: 46
Kudos: 88





	1. Steer tipping

Alex was still adjusting the strings of his canvass apron when he heard the front door bell ring:

“I’ll be with you in a moment!” He called out.

“No problem,” came a soft, low voice. He heard the click of boots on the stone floor, and looked up. It was the most beautiful cowboy he’d ever laid eyes on, holding a sheaf of papers to his chest.

“Can I help you?” He asked, libido almost overwriting ‘help’ with ‘hold’.

The man was all curly halo and swagger, but his smile was sweet: “I wanted to see if it was ok if I put one of these up in the window?”

Alex frowned; he was careful about what he let people post, after some racists had tried to recruit people for a Trump rally by putting signs in his window when one of his staff wasn’t looking.

“Can I see?”

The man's kind face closed in a little, like he was preparing for something hard. Then he pulled the fliers away from his chest, selecting one of the colorfully-designed of thin printer paper and handing it over:

> [New Mexico Gay Rodeo](http://nmgra.org/)  
> Southeaster Regional Meetup  
> August 15, 2019  
> 5-9pm  
> Foster’s Ranch

Alex looked up, scanning the man over. He hadn’t seen him at Planet 7 or the local Pride or any other kind of place. But he was new in town, his military haircut hadn’t even grown out yet. He’d only moved to this little corner of nowhere after his commission ended, bought this place and started working. He’d come just in time for Pride, but from the look of this guy, he might have been doing ranch hand work the whole summer. 

He’d apparently waited too long to speak, the man was explaining himself: “It’s not just gay men -- anyone in the alphabet soup is welcome. That is, bisexuals,” he pointed a thumb to himself, “pan folks, ace folks, aro folks, trans folks. It was mostly founded by lesbians and gay men, but there’s lots of gender nonconforming folks, intersex folks, poly folks, pretty much any version of ‘not cishet’ you can think of is in the broader statewide organization. Just around here, it’s thin pickings, so I’m hoping to broaden the pool a little.” He hitched his thumb behind his belt, which Alex now recognized as a rodeo steer tipping prize belt buckle. “We want to put some more teams together for regionals.”

Alex’s eyebrows went up. “I had no idea there was even such a thing as a gay rodeo.”

The man frowned -- _fuck, I must be coming off as straight again --_ and moved to snatch the flier back. Alex tightened his grip on it, fingers crinkling the paper as he rushed to say: “I’d be delighted to hang it. I’ll also email our regulars about it -- we’re really, really queer friendly.” He paused; he hoped, someday, this part would get easier. “We’re queer-owned and operated; I’m the owner.” He swallowed, holding his hand out to shake. “I’m Alex.”

The man’s eyes had lit-up as soon as Alex had agreed to hang his flier, and were even brighter now.

“I’m Michael. How do you feel about steer tipping?”


	2. Return spring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This lovely gifset came across my dash and I wrote this: https://jocarthage.tumblr.com/post/627083502526005248/bisexualalienblast-every-michael-guerin-scene

Alex wakes up one Saturday to find his truck is gone. In its place, with the same bright-pink post-it note he remembered seeing 11 years before stuck to his high school instrument locker, the same looping handwriting -- “It needed tuning.”

Alex feels a frisson of -- something.

They’d been, dancing, around this _thing_ for months. Spending time together, with groups, very occasionally alone.

\--

Yesterday, he’d given Michael a ride home from the rebuilt lab after Michael’s truck wouldn’t start in the parking lot. He’d been quiet on the ride back to Sanders’: it had been a long week chasing down the spare leads Mr Jones kept leaving them about the Alighting, about their history, their powers. This week’s clue had been a bit of alien tech Michael was sure was the key to communicating with Gliese 667 Cc, or, as Mr Jones called it: “Home.”

Michael had gotten the tech to pick-up some static and had worn himself to the bone trying to pick the signal from the noise. After 10 hours of this, he, Liz, and Max had called it. Alex had lingered, something in him wanting to make sure Michael made it off the campus safely. So, that had left Alex watching as Michael’s truck stuttered and shuddered, watching as the man’s shoulders sag, crunch in on himself. He offered to give him a ride back to his Airstream, Michael nodding this thanks. He’d caught him watching as Alex drove away, head tilted; Alex had thought it might be the start of something.

Or, maybe like everyone else who shared the road with Alex in the past month, he was noticing how Alex’s brakepads were worn to the metal and screamed every time he even thought about stopping.

\--

Alex has no idea where the note from his locker in high school is now; he’d kept it, folded in the back of a textbook, for years. But he’d come back from one deployment too many to find all of his books gone, purged, and he’d never found out where they’d gone.

He traces a fingertip over the edge of the bright pink sticky note and then pulls his phone out, summoning a Lyft.

Michael is under the hood of Alex’s truck when the Lyft pulls up to the mechanic’s bay. Alex hefts himself out of the backseat and stands in the New Mexico sunshine as it rumbles back out of the yard.

Michael stays stubbornly under the hood. Just like he’d kept holding onto the guitar for as long as he could until Alex had snatched it out of his hands.

Alex swivels his boots in the gravel, like he’d done in the Qatari sand when he’d had two good feet and the soft tide had come in, burying him a little deeper with each flush of flesh-warm water.

He wonders when this thing with Michael had stopped feeling like being buried alive. Had started to feel freeing, real, in a way he never could have imagined it being when he was 17.

He pulls his boots out of the gravel and strides over to Michael, feeling something like a smirk rising in his face.

He doesn't say anything, doesn't start with cussing, just -- hitches his hip on the front fender, looks the other man over where he hunches over the engine.

He is stronger, fuller than he’d been. He’s had better pay lately, better food, more sleep. He looks healthy, whole in a way he hadn’t been for a long time. Mr Jones was still probably bad guy, but Alex couldn’t help but be grateful for the breadcrumbs of connection he’d given Michael to Gliessian culture and history, even while he was playing his own games.

Alex counts Michael’s breaths, watches his healed hand and his never-broken one work on the old, unloved engine.

Michael caves first: “You gonna tell me I can’t just steal cars? That this one’s yours?”

Alex feels a real smile bloom across his face as he shakes his head: “You were gonna return it. I trust you.”

“It was out of tune,” Michael says, voice careful, glancing over his shoulder at him before returning to the engine.

“It was,” Alex replies easily. “I’m not always the best at taking care of myself or my things.” He takes a breath. “I use the brakes too much, wear them down until even healthy braking makes it feel like something’s breaking. Bad boundaries and a heavy foot; it’s something I’m working on.”

He sees a flicker of a smile on the spare bit of Michael’s cheek he can see from this angle but he doesn't say anything.

Alex tips his head back, letting the sunshine warm the soft skin of his throat, trusting nothing can get him while Michael is leaning beside him. 

He hears Michael shift, hears the sound of a tool flying through the air to tap into his palm. After a minute more, he hears:

“I -- I’m grateful. To get to fix things. Things I thought -- I thought were too broken to ever be fixed. The chance to help, to -- to realize I can help and get helped too, that people,” a hard breath, “that _you_ want and need me around. It’s a lot. I -- it makes me happy. Knowing I can help.”

Alex tips his head down, looking at the bent line of Michael’s neck where he is working a wrench, other hand braced on the lip of the engine mount.

Alex reaches across himself, snagging Michael’s wrist and drawing the man up, tucking himself in the space between Michael and the car, Michael’s face a barely masked confusion and hope and joy and worry.

He places Michael’s hand on his hip, leaving it there to carefully trace his fingertips up the long line of Michael’s neck until he is cupping his cheeks. 

“Then, you’re welcome.”

And he leans forward to kiss him, Michael meeting in the middle, bodies warm and safe in the sunlight. The truck still needed tuning, the brakes replacing; Alex needs to care for himself and Michael needs to learn how to ask before assuming. But for now, they are just two men, holding onto each other on a Saturday morning in summer, content to travel the road ahead of them together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's more about Gliese 667 Cc:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliese_667_Cc
> 
> It's part of a 3-star star system and is one of the planets I think could be cool for the aliens to be from. Here's a list of the rest:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_potentially_habitable_exoplanets


	3. I am still not having sex in the lab.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Earlier today, I posted this to the Roswell 18+ discord server:
> 
> ok, you know those sentences where different emphasis on different words makes each version a new sentence? I think I just wrote one:
> 
> “I am still not having sex in the lab.”
> 
> \--
> 
> I eventually wrote this little bit of fluff. Putting it here because it's little and fun and I don't want to lose it to the upscroll.

Liz could hear the sounds through the door, the low hum of Michael's laugh and something even softer. She was considering turning around and getting back in her car, texting Mikey to check her experiment for her when he was done with his own _experiments_ but then she heard a beaker break and a yelp.

She swiped her way into the lab, eyes narrowed in the low dark. _Mikey hadn't even turned on the light_.

In the shadows, she could see a shirtless shadow wearing a black cowboy hat, view from the waist down thankfully blocked by a lab bench. Beside him on the floor was a smashed mason jar with what looked like spilled kombucha. The sour fermenting smell was beginning to fill the lab and she was grateful for any other smells it might be covering.

"Mikey, what do you think you're doing?"

He seemed to take a while with that question, normally lightning-fast brain apparently made sluggish by horniness. Sounding each word out, he said slowly: "I'm _not_ having sex in the lab?"

She nodded, motion clear and exaggerated.

He returned her nod, but didn't move to clean-up the kombucha.

After a long moment, Liz rolled her eyes. "Fine, pendejo, but I better not find any suspicious stains on the floor and that stuff better be cleaned up off the concrete before it stinks up the whole place."

"Yes ma'am," Michael said, and there was a muffled sound from under the lab bench in front of him, like someone was stifling a giggle.

Liz fled.

If those two idiots thought they were hiding their reunion tour of all of their greatest hits from the rest of the group, what with Alex's truck parked snug next to Michael's, then she wasn't going to be the one to break it to them


End file.
